On this episode of “Know Your Well,” we’re focusing on what new homeowners should look for during a home inspection concerning their water wells and some basic water well maintenance after they’ve closed on their property.
Our guest is Gary Hix, who is a Registered Professional Geologist in Arizona, specializing in hydrogeology. He was the 2019 William A. McEllhiney Distinguished Lecturer for The Groundwater Foundation. He is a former licensed water well drilling contractor and remains actively involved in the National Ground Water Association and Arizona Water Well Association.
“Know Your Well” is a production of the National Ground Water Association. This podcast was created and edited by NGWA’s Abby Valencic. and hosted by Ben Frech.
WellOwner.org is supported by the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, as part of the USEPA funded program “Improving Water Quality through Training and Technical Assistance to Private Well Owners.” To learn more about the Rural Community Assistance Partnership, go to RCAP.org.
Episode Transcript
Ben Frech:
Welcome to Know Your Well, presented by WellOwner.org and the National Ground Water Association. On each episode of Know Your Well, we’ll explore different topics that impact private well owners across the country, from water quality to everyday water well maintenance. My name is Ben Frech and I will be your host as we explore the wide world of water wells. On our first episode of Know Your Well, we will be focusing on what new homeowners should be looking for during a home inspection concerning their water wells and some basic water well maintenance after they closed on the property.
Ben Frech:
Today’s guest will be Gary Hix. Gary is a registered professional geologist in Arizona, specializing in hydrogeology. He was the 2019 William McEllhiney distinguished lecturer for The Groundwater Foundation. He’s a former licensed water well drilling contractor and remains active in the National Ground Water Association and the Arizona Water Wells Association. Thanks for joining us today, Gary.
Gary Hix:
Okay. Thank you, Ben. It’s a pleasure to be with you here. Let me begin to share the screen so I can speak to you and to the audience.
Ben Frech:
So Gary, while you’re doing that, why don’t you tell us a little bit about how you got into the water well game here?
Gary Hix:
Well, let’s see. It started many years ago. I watched my first water well being drilled in about 1951 when they were drilling a well for my parents and my family and I. And I didn’t know at the time that was going to be my profession. But in about 1977, I started setting on drill rigs as a trainee, I guess you could call it, catching samples and so on. And then finished, went back to school, finished my degree, ’79, went to work for a water utility. And from that day on, I’ve just been involved. I think I’ve been a member of the NGWA since about 1978. That’s a fair number of years. But it’s been a great experience and I’ve really enjoyed all I’ve been able to do and perform with the association.
Ben Frech:
Well, we really appreciate you taking the time today. So yeah, let’s get into it. So understanding the basics of your water well. Gary, take it from here.
Gary Hix:
Well, thank you. Thank you, Ben, for the introduction. And thank you, everyone, for tuning in today to this first podcast that we’re doing. Now there’ll be some others that will come along, I believe has been said, where we will delve into greater detail in other subjects than what we’re covering today. But I took the assumption that many of the first time well owners, let’s say it’s someone that moved from California to the state of Texas. And they brought a property with a private water well. Well, everything is going to be different for them.
Gary Hix:
So the first thing I’d say or ask them might be: Did they have the water well inspected by a professional water well contractor or inspector before they purchased the property? Because that would be a critical step to perform because you need to know just as much as you need to know what kind of a roof and a furnace and a fireplace and everything else you have, you need to know exactly what you’re going to be getting with your well inspection.
Gary Hix:
So for those who maybe have already purchased the home and have tuned in for this reason, if you can find your well inspection report and bring it out and watch this podcast, I think that will be helpful because I’m going to try to explain many of the most important components that the inspector should’ve covered during those times before you purchased the property. If not, we’ll bring you up to speed on well inspections at a later time. But for right now, I want to just make a statement that the first thing probably you ought to do for yourself is become familiar with the groundwater laws in your state.
Gary Hix:
And it’s a very big subject, a very deep one. We won’t get into it very far with our podcast here, but just let me say that Eastern states’ laws, about east of the Mississippi versus those on the Western side, the basic principles of groundwater ownership can be quite different because in, let’s say in California, the imaginary change that I was starting with, groundwater is a public resource managed by a state, or in the case of California, actually a county authority rather than one state agency covering everything.
Gary Hix:
But if you move to the state of Texas, groundwater basically goes with the land. So if you could just think of those two different aspects of what it is, and find out and be comfortable with it in your state. The other thing that I think is critically important is to know whatever the laws are, that your well is properly registered, certified, or whatever they call it, recorded with the state or county that you live in, to make sure that you know your well and your water right perhaps, is a record for that state. That’s a much bigger subject. But I want you to think about learning all you can for your state.
Gary Hix:
Now the next important step that you can do is locate your well. You need to know where it’s at. And it might very close, as in the Airbnb home on the left. Or it might be out in the field some distance away. Sometimes in some states, water is where you can find it, and it might be quite some distance between the actual well for your property and where you’re actually using it, the tanks and the other components. The other thing to look at while you’re out there is to make sure that there is always vehicular access to the well head.
Gary Hix:
As a water well contractor over the years, I ran into so many situations where unintentionally, the homeowner built obstructions between the well and the access, the road, the right of way. And this made it terribly difficult in time consuming to get to the well. So I think it’s quite important that you think about that. Always maintain vehicular access to your well head.
Ben Frech:
What should they be looking for as far as for what a well usually looks like or will look like on their property?
Gary Hix:
Well, in majority of the states, what we’re talking about, the wells are completed with what we call a pitless adapter installation. And I’ll have some photos of that in a minute. But basically, it’s just a piece of pipe. Some states, it can be PVC. But normally, it’s sticking up out of the ground. It’s five or six, maybe eight inches in diameter, sticks up out of the ground one to two feet. Some states have minimum heights that they must be, and that’s to keep water, flood waters from topping it and getting down inside it. But basically, it’s just a steel pipe.
Gary Hix:
But then if it’s a pitless adapter, then usually the tanks and the control equipment is located some distance away from the well itself. And that would be the next thing that … One other thing I would state is that here where I live in the drier, warmer climates, a lot of our well completions are what we call above ground completions, where the plumbing and the electricity just comes through conduit or plumbing, and those things are exposed, except when there’s an occasion for temperatures to drop below 30 degrees, and we put some freeze protection on it.
Gary Hix:
But steel or PVC casing sticking up out of the ground, or out of the floor of your shed. Here’s a photo of a six inch steel casing sticking about a foot and a half up out of the ground, totally surrounded by a nice concrete slab, maybe five, six feet in diameter. So this, I’m going to stress that for the homeowner to go out there and look and see what is immediately around that well casing. It should be, if it’s just in dirt, it should be, the dirt should be higher than the surrounding land so that water or rainfall, snow melt, runs away from the well, not towards it. You certainly don’t want water to pond around the well casing. And if it can have a cement slab around it, just to protect varmints and rodents and other things from digging down around it, that’s good.
Gary Hix:
The other thing is to watch and see that nothing grows within, like trees or major bushes, within 10 feet of the well casing because those roots can go down and intercept the well. So it should stand alone and be protected. This is not what you’d want to find in your well. It shows a PVC well casing sticking out of the ground with a void around the outside of the casing, where the complete handle of a hoe has gone down alongside that casing. Now whatever lands on the water on the soil in that area, whatever water lands on the soil in that area, that water can just run right down, and so can rodents, varmints, and other things, right down alongside the well casing. And that’s going to get right to your water table in very short order.
Gary Hix:
I’ve also seen, even when this was a steel casing and the ground below it was pretty solid, at times right near the shallow surface of the soil, a hole will corrode in the side of the steel casing, maybe the size of a penny. And water can run in there, and that’s what we find that people’s water became contaminated with bacteria. And when looking into it, that’s what we found out, that there was a hole in the side of the casing.
Gary Hix:
So I think it’s important for you to locate the well on your land, make sure there’s access to it, and to see that the well head is secure, water drains away from it, and that there isn’t anything that compromises. That well cap that’s on the top should be securely in place, screwed in or bolted down so that it’s not easily picked up by just someone passing by, no cracks or breaks in that cover plate. That’s what lets water or lets anything else into your drinking water, so it must be secured.
Ben Frech:
Now Gary, if folks are out there and they see their well casing, or they see there could be some kind of problem with water, contaminating their water table, what would be a first step for them to do if right away they’re looking at their well, and they see that the casing is cracked, or they can see something obviously is wrong just by first look?
Gary Hix:
Well, I suspect that most of these problems that you’re describing or visualizing are things that should be addressed by a licensed water well contractor. We know you can log onto WellOwner.org and find a list of contractors in your area that belong to NGWA.
Ben Frech:
Yes. That’s right. WellOwner.org does have a great find a contractor tool, which will actually link you with licensed water well contractors in the state, so that’s great.
Gary Hix:
Well, now there’s another major component to your system, and it’s going to be a tank of some type. It’s an essential part of the system. It may look, be a large galvanized tank. This is the style in the ’50s and ’60s. But most of them today that are being constructed and built use these captive air bladder tanks. They’re much smaller, sometimes blue, sometimes sort of a tan colored tank. But the tank is essential to work with the pressure control system, controls of your system, to regulate and turn on and off the pump in the well.
Gary Hix:
And the first thing I’d want a new homeowner to do is simply locate it, know where it is, what it looks like, and look if they can see the controls that are adjacent to it. Usually, there’s a pressure switch and a pressure gauge very nearby. And I’d like to give them a hint about some of the things to look at when they get an opportunity. But I have on the left a picture of a well inside a building, concrete floor with excellent electrical wiring and service to it. And this one happens to be inside a building, so there’s a hole in the roof in order to get the pump out. That’s always sometimes a challenge that way.
Gary Hix:
But this very neat installation is the one that I think typifies what well owners should be thinking about. I even have coined the expression paint your well gold and treat it that way, because the well is the crown jewel, the jewel in the crown, because without it: What is the value of the home if you don’t have water? Basically, you can’t even live in it. So paint your well gold and treat it that way.
Ben Frech:
How often will homeowners find their wells in buildings like that? Is that somewhat rare? Or is that more common in certain parts of the country than other parts of the country?
Gary Hix:
Yes. Different parts of the country. It’s fairly rare down here in the Southern border states and so on, with the exception that some people do it because they don’t like to have something unsightly on the outside of the house, or they didn’t have a closet to put it in. But as a water well contractor, I wasn’t often in favor of enclosing the well. If you use the pitless adapter, it can be a quarter mile from the house. All it has to do is push the water up to the tank, and nothing on a pitless adapter will freeze if it’s properly set to a proper depth and constructed.
Gary Hix:
But when the pump is inside a building like this, then I have to get the crane on the outside close enough to the building and through the roof, and then have a worker on the inside. And you can’t see their hands or get his signals while you’re working, so I’m not much in favor of that. But it is necessary sometimes. And in super cold environments, mostly the tank and controls are inside, even though the pitless adapter may be outside.
Ben Frech:
Right. That makes sense.
Gary Hix:
Now the two of the key components that a homeowner should look at and maybe even look into is what I call the pressure switch. It’s this little gray box that sets on top of the plumbing. It’s a factory made device. Normally, it comes on at a pressure setting, let’s say of 30 and 20 pounds per square inch, and shuts off 20 pounds higher at 50 PSI. So there’ll be a 20, 40, 30, 50, 40, 60, et cetera. Now it’s best, and I always installed a pressure gauge along with the pressure switch, so that the homeowner can tell me what’s going on with the system if they’re seeing something wrong with it, and knowing what the pressure is in your system is a very good thing because that can tell you if everything is working right in the system. When does it come on? What PSI does it come on? What PSI does it shut off?
Ben Frech:
And where do folks usually find that information about what their PSI, what the pressure should be in their system? Is there a universal for each system? Or are most of them, are they different between each system?
Gary Hix:
Yes, Ben. Well, very good question. And let me try and explain that. Now there will be everything from the 20, 40, very low pressure system because the people maybe feel that they don’t need any more pressure than that because they have maybe perhaps old and weak plumbing. Now other people, nominal range, might be 30, come on at 30 and go off at 50 PSI. And that gives you very decent water pressure and so on. But if you’re pushing water a long distance away from the well, or from a booster pump, and it’s going upstairs to a second property, you might have to have it set to come on at 40 and go off at 60.
Gary Hix:
And I have a photo on the screen of a pressure cap taken off. It shows that it’s a 40 on it. And here’s what it looks like a little more on the inside. This one is factory set to be a come on at 40, go off at 60 PSI. Now what this means though, and this is where homeowners, especially new owners, have to be careful is because these things cannot be just changed willy nilly. The pressure switch is adjustable, but the pre charge inside a pressure tank like this one, a bladder tank like this one, needs to be adjusted and have its pre charge, the pressure of air that’s inside the tank when there’s no water against it, set to two pounds less than the come on pressure of the switch.
Gary Hix:
If the pressure in the tank is higher than the switch setting, you’d be in the shower and the water would stop flowing completely, and then the pump would come on, and then it would start back producing water again. So if you have it two pounds less, then the pump will come on before the bladder bottoms out and shuts off your water. Here’s a very neat installation of a fractional horsepower pump stuck in the corner of a room, or the garage. And it shows the pressure switch, pressure gauge, and even a pressure relief valve, which I might talk about that in a later subject, and a system control valve that can be shut off in order to stop the flow of water out of the system.
Gary Hix:
But these two things have to be adjusted together. If you’re not comfortable with that, that’s something that you should call a licensed water well contractor to look at or look into for you.
Ben Frech:
I know we get into this a little bit. But in home inspections and regulations, are there regulations, or do home inspectors like to see the pre charge pressure at a certain place, or where the tank is placed at a certain place in the home?
Gary Hix:
Very good question, Ben. I do believe, I always check the pre charge pressure by shutting off the system briefly, draining off the water pressure that’s in the system, and checking the pre charge, and then putting it back together, watching it fill back up again, and making sure that it shut off at the proper pressure. I believe that’s all part of a respectable water well inspection. The problem or the issue that we have there from state to state is that there really are no standards for who can be a water well inspector, what kind of report the inspector must write, or what it must include. This is contrary to home inspections, septic tank inspections, and pest or termite inspections. They all have standards. But water well inspections are not … Well, they’re kind of catch as catch can.
Ben Frech:
Right, right, which is, we always talk about this, could be as many as 50 million people on water wells in the United States. And think that hopefully one day we can get some more kind of credentialing in place for these water well inspectors, maybe.
Gary Hix:
I would certainly be in favor of that. I would like to see a standardization of some form of inspection report, for one, that the new first time homeowner can understand because if it’s just a sheet of paper, eight and a half by 11, with a bunch of squares and boxes and a few comments on it, that’s like interpreting a listing of a home. Most of us just aren’t that familiar with it. There’s room for improvement there.
Gary Hix:
But in doing this tank pre charge check, you must have no water in the system when you’re doing it, and then build it back up again. Now the other component of it that’s closely tied with it is this pressure switch that I mention from time to time. And here in this photo, I can see that the pressure is high. It’s 56 pounds or so and the contacts are open. Now this pressure switch has the full 230 volts running through it because there’s four wires on it. And all four contacts are open.
Gary Hix:
Now homeowners need to be aware that this could be live voltage going through here when they take that cover off initially. If you’re going to mess with this pressure switch in any way, or attempt to clean the contacts between there, you’ve got to shut the electricity off while you’re doing it. Just be safe. These two things are the key components, the most elementary components of a private water well system.
Gary Hix:
Now the next component up the chain you might say of what’s complicated or not complicated is the electrical controls, and the motor controls and so on. The photo on the left shows a fractional horsepower starter control box, possibly this one was even installed by a homeowner. I see some undefined wires going through there that are not in conduit. But on the right hand side is another starter control box next to a well, a pitless adapted well. And I can see that the electricity is in conduit and properly wired. And this is what the homeowner needs to look at. Is your installation electronically safe? Does it follow the basic electrical contracting codes? Because states and counties do adopt codes for electrical service on new homes, on existing homes. But lots of times, they don’t come out and inspect water wells for some reason, or well modification work. A homeowner can do anything themselves, and it can be anything.
Ben Frech:
And oftentimes, will your water well contractor also be the contractor installing your pumps and dealing with the electrical unit and the motor as well? Or do they sometimes subcontract with an electrician? Or is that usually all done by a water well contractor?
Gary Hix:
Well, Ben, you brought up a very good point. It depends on the state because in some states, water well drillers do pump installations. In other states, there are water well drillers who don’t put in pumps. There are pump installers who don’t drill wells. And in some states, what comes to mind is New Mexico, the pump installer can only simply hang the pump in the well, and can do none of the electrical controls unless they have an electrical contractor’s license. So it’s across the country-
Ben Frech:
Across the board, like all things ground water, it’s a state by state issue.
Gary Hix:
It’s state by state, and in some cases, county by county. Some of the counties in my state will come out and inspect the installation on new construction of private water wells, but not modifications, or repairs, or replacements and so on. But at any rate, a homeowner should know where these components are, what they look like, excuse me, what kind of horsepower pump and motor they have in the well. And there are some of them have little red lights on them, or green lights, that tell them whether it’s running satisfactorily or has an error message on it, and so on. And if you can become familiar with that, and then you can get much better service when you call a pump contractor to come out and look at your well if you can report some of this too.
Gary Hix:
And see, some of this electrical service work is a little beyond some homeowners’ capabilities. Others, if they have electrical experience in their background, can actually put an amp meter on their own pump and see that it’s running properly. And that will go a long ways in self diagnosing your well problems, especially if you’re a long way out of town.
Gary Hix:
And along that line is what I have always advocated, is keep well data handy. So what I made for my customers was, here’s a blank drawing of a pitless adapter equipped well that I would give to them, where we can fill in the various details in numbers and specifications and so on of what their well looked like, how deep it was drilled, where the perforations were, and so on. Kind of a detailed drawing, and it could be filled in with lots of additional information.
Ben Frech:
This is great.
Gary Hix:
And I’d make this blank PDF file available to anyone that would like one. And the same way with this installation record form. Anytime I did a work on a customer’s well, I filled out one of these and presented it to them. It gives them a lot of basic information in one area, inserted sometimes, from time to time, a photograph or two of what it was I worked on, because sometimes you’re working on a property and the homeowner’s not there. You want to communicate to them as simply, clearly as you can. This form, I could also make available to anybody that wanted to bring their own personal well records up to date. And I really believe that they should.
Gary Hix:
But this, as I see it, is just about the beginning of what we could do for well owners. There’s so many different types of installations around the country. And there’s new equipment out there, where tanks of this size, these bladder tanks, have been totally replaced by nothing more than a tank about the size of a basketball because the pump and motor are being run at a variable speed to maintain a constant pressure. And I think I’ll have to hold off on that concept. But if a new homeowner has found out that the well that they have, and what they’re looking at doesn’t look like anything I’ve spoken about here today, then I’d be happy to go into it a little further, or explain it more in the advanced, modern, technically modern equipment that we use on wells.
Ben Frech:
Excellent. And of course, any homeowner who has further questions, or would like more clarification on this, of course we are always promoting WellOwner.org, which has numerous resources on well ownership, well maintenance, as well as of course the find a local contractor tool. So Gary, thank you very, very much. I think was a good way to start this podcast, and getting the ball rolling on getting more knowledge to people about their water well systems, talking about what they should be looking for, who they can contact to help inspect their systems because I think a lot of people, especially younger people, buying a home is already daunting enough. But then realizing, oh, wait, I have to provide my own water in some way. And it’s up to me, the city’s not going to be a part of it, it’s all on me, I think can also be kind of daunting. So I think it’s good to get this conversation started.
Ben Frech:
So Gary, before we sign off here, where can people kind of find you online or read more of your books? I know that you’re a published author.
Gary Hix:
Well, I’m best found at in2wells.com. That’s a website that I’ve kept for the consulting services that I can do for homeowners, and sometimes still for contractors. And yes, I have written and published two different eBooks, they’re Kindle books, only available on Amazon. At a future time, I’ll show you covers of them. And they’re for my state, the state of Arizona. One is called Domestic Water Wells in Arizona. It’s a guide for realtors and mortgage lenders because I felt that they needed to be well informed. And I like that pun.
Gary Hix:
Then the other one, I’ve just recently published is, because we have so many shared water wells in Arizona, it is A Guide to Shared Water Wells in Arizona. It’s a guide for managers and all the complex things that they can run into with manage … It’s like an HOA in some respects. But we could promote them at some point.
Ben Frech:
Excellent. Well, that’s all for the first episode of Know Your Well. Know Your Well is a production of the National Ground Water Association. This podcast was created by Abby Valencic. I’m your host, Ben Frech, telling you what you need to know to make the well water flow. Thanks, everybody. And to learn more about maintaining your water well, please visit WellOwner.org. WellOwner.org is supported by the Rural Community Assistance Partnership as part of the USEPA funded program, improving water quality through training and technical assistance to private water wells. To learn more about Rural Community Assistance Partnership, go to rcap.org. Thank you, everybody, for joining us, and we’ll see you next time.
